


Meeting Mama Bluejeans

by TaraHarkon



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cemetery, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Meeting the Parents, Past Character Death, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 10:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraHarkon/pseuds/TaraHarkon
Summary: Lup had never really thought about meeting Barry's parents, after all, she didn't think about family much. That and there was the whole Hunger thing. But the Hunger was behind them now. And they had plans regarding Greg Grimaldis in the future, which meant they had to be able to go back to their home plane again. Which meant it was something that was on the table again... At least, that seemed to be what Barry was implying?None of this goes the way Lup was picturing.





	Meeting Mama Bluejeans

Barry set one of the bright orange belts down on the workbench and then adjusted his glasses, staring just past it. There were so many potential dangers to these devices, but at the same time, there were so many benefits, so many possibilities. There were so many worlds they could return to and... gods, he wanted so badly to go back to the Legato Conservatory and walk those same streets, go to the same cafes. Or back to Tesseralia now that he and Lup could enjoy it together. Or the beach world. But there was another world that tugged at him, one he hadn’t expected to in the slightest. He looked up at Lup, mere feet away across the workbench from him.

“We should test these, babe. Just uh... just make sure there’s no side effects or anything.”

She tilted her head to the side just slightly, expressive ears flicking up slightly in curiosity.

“And we’re the best test subjects because we can just reaper zap ourselves home if we fucked up? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Bear. Can’t risk this shit going wrong for the big heist.”

Barry chuckled quietly and picked the belt back up.

“I’ll set some coordinates, okay? Just a quick trip. Nothing to uh... nothing too special.”

Lup watched him as he entered the temporospatial coordinates into each belt carefully. He had such an eye for detail, she thought, a small tender smile on her face. There was something about the sequence of letters and numbers he’d punched in that caught her attention. She knew the plane, the major coordinates, but not the minor. Then he held the belt out and she fastened it on.

“Where we headed, babe? I got the part for our home plane but not the rest.”

He shrugged a little, gaze on the floor as he hooked his own belt on and adjusted it so it wasn’t too tight.

“Yeah, Stonefield is a pretty small place. Most people‘ve never heard of it.”

The name caught her attention and held it. Barry talked about his childhood often. He’d been a happy boy by his own account, with a home life that fascinated Lup. It sounded so much like her and Taako’s time with their aunt but it had been his whole life. Her ears flicked straight up as she processed that through. His hometown.

“Should I go change into something nicer?”

He looked up then, startled, and laughed.

“No, no, nothing like that. Don’t worry. Just uh... I want to stop at the florist quick if it’s still there... and then uh...”

He squeezed the two trigger mechanisms on the belt together and Lup followed suit. A moment later, it was like they were falling through space. Barry felt like he was spinning and it was a uniquely unpleasant sensation. And then they were standing on a street corner in a small suburban town. Two kids playing stopped and stared up at them and Lup gave them a grin and a little wave. Then she reached for Barry’s hand, trying to hide the sudden nerves. She’d heard so much about his mother in all his stories. She should have known this would happen eventually.

Barry turned them down a side street, headed towards the florist shop he remembered from so long ago.

“It’s weird being back here, you know? Haven’t uh... haven’t actually been here since I started working at the IPRE.”

It was a quiet town. The sort of place that is only just large enough that some people didn’t know each other on sight. But only just. They passed a little used bookstore and an old library, and Barry started to tear up. It really was all still here, just the way he remembered. Even after so many years, even after the Hunger.

They went to the florist and Barry scrounged around in his wallet until he found enough money from this plane of his birth to pay for a few pretty blue flowers. Forget-me-nots, they were called. The wood elf behind the counter wrapped them carefully and soon he and Lup were back out onto the street, walking hand in hand.

“So...” Lup was really starting to get nervous now. She’d never considered things in terms of meeting his family. They had always been planes away, locked behind an enemy they could only barely fight. And now all of that was gone and they were here. “Where next?”

He gave her an uncertain look and adjusted his glasses.

“We’re almost there. And we can go home after. This won’t take long...”

They walked through a residential neighborhood and up past an old stone temple devoted to the Raven Queen. That caught Lup’s attention and she stopped, looking up at the wrought iron archway over the burial ground. She started to open her mouth to say something, pointing up at the symbol over the door. Then she was startled when Barry kept walking, headed in. He turned back over his shoulder and gave her a sad smile.

“Guess I never said, huh?”

She took his hand again, following him through the maze of upright stones until they found one carved of a dark stone that shimmered slightly. Carved in the face of the stone in large block letters it read Bluejeans. Under that were two names, two sets of dates. Marlena and Gregor. Lup stopped just a bit back, the realization sinking into her. In one hundred ten years, she had managed to block out a lot of things. She'd done her best to not think about the mortality of humans, of their short lives. And it had been easy to when she wasn't seeing them age. One hundred years with no change wasn't unusual for her and Taako but for Barry and Magnus and Lucretia... And this was so much more than a reminder of human mortality. This was Barry's family. 

Barry carefully took the plastic off the flowers and knelt down to set them on the grass in front of the stone. Lup stepped up beside him, ears flicked back and uncertainty on her face. He stood again, putting an arm around her. He cleared his throat and looked down for a moment.

"Uh... hey Mom... Dad. It uh... it's kind of been a while. Or at least it has for me? I guess I don't really know how time was flowing during the uh... the whole Hunger thing, huh?" 

He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. He'd never really brought anyone else here before. His quiet, one-sided conversations with his parents had always been private. Even when he was a teenager coming here in the early morning light to talk through his problems when it was only his father buried here.

"But uh... That whole mess is over now and we figured out how to come back at least for a while and..." He turned slightly to smile at Lup before looking back at the same spot, just a foot or so above the top of the stone. "I wanted you to meet Lup." His smile faltered and his voice was choked. "You... you would love her, Mom. I know it."

Lup leaned into him, heart beating fast. She had gotten used to working with the dead, what with their new gig in the Astral Plane and all. But this was somehow different. There was no spirit standing in front of them, no specter that she could focus on. There was just a cold stone and green grass and tears on her husband's face. At the same time, he seemed like this was so normal. Like coming to this place and talking to the air was something that he did, that he had done before. Lup cleared her throat, finding that she couldn't quite speak.

"Um..." She tried to picture the woman Barry had told her about instead of focusing on the polished stone in front of them. It felt a little less odd, a little less uncomfortable. “I guess when I thought... This isn’t what I pictured, you know? But... thanks. For Barry. For raising a guy this great. He talks about you all the time. And it sure sounds to me like you’re the one who made him the man I love so much. So, thanks.”

Barry’s arm around her tightened almost imperceptibly.

“We got married... Well, I guess _officially_ this past spring. We uh... we did it a few times during the century, just because we could. But uh... I wish you could’ve been there. That’s... that’s the only thing that was missing. Having you there to see it happen.” Barry smiled then, even as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “You always said I’d get my life together eventually, right? It uh... it just maybe took a little longer than we were thinking.”

Lup waited. Waited for him to line his words up. Waited for him to find everything he needed to get out. Then she put a hand on his, her tone gentle as she spoke.

“Babe, you know we can come back. We’ve got the belts now. This won’t be the last time we come here.”

He nodded a little and then leaned against her, needing support in that moment.

“I know.”

“And for what it’s worth, from everything you’ve told me? I think I’d love her too.”

 


End file.
